Campaign Settings for 5e, a couple questions

[Anonymouswizard]

It's steam punk. It's not literally steam that fuels everything, but that is the genre.

It's dungeonpunk. It lacks the style, social dynamics*, and steam of steampunk (heck, with the Houses it's closer to cyberpunk). Although some people prefer the term magipunk.

Dungeonpunk is about the use of the fantastical to explore the mundane. It doesn't strictly need magic industrialised to the point Eberron is, but it helps.

Eberron threw off a lot of trappings and assumptions of pre-5e D&D, but didn't just pick up the trappings of steampunk to replace them. It's actually more of a pulp adventure setting, including a continent of dangerous jungles for the PCs to chase villains to!

* It's closer to the 1930s or even 50s by my reading.

The official world has the gods distant, not directly involved in the world. It's faith to believe they exist. What if there's proof? What if there's proof they don't exist? What if there's proof they do? What if they begin to take direct actions in the world, not be distant anymore?

If there's proof either way you're removing what makes Eberron religion interesting. There are other settings out there which feature proof of the existence of absence of gods, why jam that into Eberron?

That's ignoring the facts that 1) the official line to their existence is 'eh', 2) some religions do have verifiable objects of worship, and 3) if you dig back through draconic history you can find the likely inspirations for the Sovereign Host. What's questionable is their Divinity.

I mean, there's nothing stopping the Sovereign Host from intervening in your home games, but my question there is 'why use Eberron'.


Although admittedly in my homebrew setting I've totally stolen Eberron's religious ambiguity and more modern society. Also Changelings, but that's just because I like them.

[Dr.Samurai]

I mean, there's nothing stopping the Sovereign Host from intervening in your home games, but my question there is 'why use Eberron'.

Well, they could like literally everything else about Eberron lol. Each DM will decide how closely to cleave to the pre-established setting. The existence of real life gods in Eberron is a question, and one that a DM could choose to answer with "yeah, they're real".

[Sparky McDibben]

An interesting quandry. I myself tend to have leanings much like your DM, the most so amongst my group, so finding a compromise setting between these tastes is a matter of much interest to me.

I'm actually going to bring up a setting that hasn't been suggested so far: Points of Light, the intended default setting for 4th Edition, also called the Nentir Vale setting. I'm not a fan of 4e's gameplay, but the setting was one thing I thought worked really well. Its title references the theme of little islands of civilization, flickering like candlelights against the darkness and chaos of the wilderness. It's very old-school D&D in that way, and I like the intimate focus on one region, the Nentir Vale. But because it was intended to be the main setting for 4th Edition, it works in races like Dragonborn and Tieflings (who first became core races that edition) very deliberately, whereas they can feel rather tacked on in pre-4e settings.

To my knowledge, it hasn't received much attention in 5e, possibly as a result of the general antipathy for 4e. But I think it's a fairly good balance between older and newer sensibilities.

I literally went and dug up every worldbuilding supplement for that setting because I thought it was cool as hell. Good call!

[Pex]

It's dungeonpunk. It lacks the style, social dynamics*, and steam of steampunk (heck, with the Houses it's closer to cyberpunk). Although some people prefer the term magipunk.

Dungeonpunk is about the use of the fantastical to explore the mundane. It doesn't strictly need magic industrialised to the point Eberron is, but it helps.

Eberron threw off a lot of trappings and assumptions of pre-5e D&D, but didn't just pick up the trappings of steampunk to replace them. It's actually more of a pulp adventure setting, including a continent of dangerous jungles for the PCs to chase villains to!

* It's closer to the 1930s or even 50s by my reading.

Tomato tomahto

If there's proof either way you're removing what makes Eberron religion interesting. There are other settings out there which feature proof of the existence of absence of gods, why jam that into Eberron?

That's ignoring the facts that 1) the official line to their existence is 'eh', 2) some religions do have verifiable objects of worship, and 3) if you dig back through draconic history you can find the likely inspirations for the Sovereign Host. What's questionable is their Divinity.

I mean, there's nothing stopping the Sovereign Host from intervening in your home games, but my question there is 'why use Eberron'.


Although admittedly in my homebrew setting I've totally stolen Eberron's religious ambiguity and more modern society. Also Changelings, but that's just because I like them.

Because it's just an example campaign idea among many I offered. Don't want to play that idea? Don't play it. I don't care.
Or, because it precisely goes against Eberron philosophy. The DM and players like Forgotten Realms with meddlesome deities. It might be fun for them to explore the idea of gods making an appearance when there was none. They can run their own version of Time of Troubles. Maybe it's a tie in to the dragon marks. Each dragon mark is actually a deity's true holy symbol. Maybe having done meddlesome gods campaigns they want to explore absolutely no gods, for certain. What is a world where faith is meaningless? Do more people now accept undead as a means of immortality because there's no afterlife? Other planes are written about. Do the people know about them? How do they react knowing where they go upon death and it absolutely does not matter what they do in life? What's the point of virtue if cruelty is faster and there are no consequences?

[Envyus]

Uh, no they don't. There's plenty of races that only exist in other settings, such as the Warforged in Eberron, Kender in Dragonlance, etc.

Warforged do exist in FR, not in large numbers or anything, but can be found there.

Kender also exist there in small numbers. I played Baldur's Gate 2 and ran into some. They had gotten sucked into a Planer portal and ended up in FR.

[Anonymouswizard]

Tomato tomahto



Because it's just an example campaign idea among many I offered. Don't want to play that idea? Don't play it. I don't care.
Or, because it precisely goes against Eberron philosophy. The DM and players like Forgotten Realms with meddlesome deities. It might be fun for them to explore the idea of gods making an appearance when there was none. They can run their own version of Time of Troubles. Maybe it's a tie in to the dragon marks. Each dragon mark is actually a deity's true holy symbol. Maybe having done meddlesome gods campaigns they want to explore absolutely no gods, for certain. What is a world where faith is meaningless? Do more people now accept undead as a means of immortality because there's no afterlife? Other planes are written about. Do the people know about them? How do they react knowing where they go upon death and it absolutely does not matter what they do in life? What's the point of virtue if cruelty is faster and there are no consequences?

Why use Eberron over a setting with existing but distant god's. A couple of your ideas are also already explored in Eberron, such as the fact that Eberron's afterlife isn't exactly great and how religions deal with that. Including two major religions that give two different views on the 'undeath as immortality' idea.

That's not getting into the fact that with ambiguous god's religion in Eberron becomes a matter of faith, rather than just a way to avoid the bloody Wall of the Faithless. That's interesting and opens up storytelling possibilities that don't exist in most published D&D settings, I don't see the benefit to it.

Warforged do exist in FR, not in large numbers or anything, but can be found there.

Kender also exist there in small numbers. I played Baldur's Gate 2 and ran into some. They had gotten sucked into a Planer portal and ended up in FR.

Also known as 'the bloody Realms can't let other settings have nice things'. At least in FR killing kender moves your alignment towards Lawful Good, as is right and proper.

[Jervis]

I don't think that's correct. The Book of Humanoids has 25 listings. Even if you separate the Half-Orc and Half-Ogre from their listings that's only 27. Monsters of the Multiverse conversely has 33 listings.

Fair enough though i should have specified that i count elf/dwarf subraces and variants separately (well subraces kinda aren't a thing now but thats besides the point). So i lump the variant takes on the PHB subraces as extensions on those. Granted i might also be misremembering how many were in the book of humanoids, i haven't read it in the better part of a decade, not since i last made a 2e character. Main point i was making is that stuff like Minotaurs and Unspellable Named Bird People have been playable since almost the beginning.

[Kane0]

I play with a very, very traditionalist group of people: pretty much everyone plays humans, dwarves, elves with a few exceptions here and there, say a dragonborn. We (sadly) play in FR, I know it's a very detailed world and there is a ton of material for it, but it's getting really old.
For what I know, may other settings introduce new races or variant races and considering my DM is 100% against anything that it's not aligning to his old-school view of D&D, I have a hard time, say wasted time, making him see reason and allow variety if the race is not "native" in the setting.

I'd very much like to convince him to planar travel away from the Sword Coast to some other world (by accident? On a mission?), hence my few questions.

Outside Forgotten and the aforementioned Eberron, are there any other campaign settings you'd recommend?

Feel free to be as verbose as you like, I love reading reviews and experiences of other players.

Ooh, perhaps you could hand him a copy of this:
https://www.rpgmp3.com/files/pdf/Mys...s_Guide_5e.pdf
It wouldnt be new per se, but a decent chance he'd bite for a familiar setting and its something different.

[Glorthindel]

The shame is the one good thing about 4e... and I'm saing it as someone who hates 4e... wasn't translated to 5e in favor of stuff like MtG and anything to do with Critical Role.

While I never felt any love for the Nentir Vale, I do really wish it was still a used setting, so 5th ed designers wouldn't have felt the need to kidnap the Raven Queen from it and smear her haphazardly over the other settings like a 2 year old on a dirty protest.

[Anonymouswizard]

While I never felt any love for the Nentir Vale, I do really wish it was still a used setting, so 5th ed designers wouldn't have felt the need to kidnap the Raven Queen from it and smear her haphazardly over the other settings like a 2 year old on a dirty protest.

Early 5e seems to have had a 'Forgotten Realms, but with the cool stuff from other settings shoved in whether or not they fit' attitude. It didn't exactly work so well.

While causing issues with settings that don't use the Great Wheel (such as Eberron) the current mentality of 'it's all one multiverse' is better. It's something I ignore with as much focus as I'm able to, but it's better.

[Schwann145]

It seems to me you have two main issues:

1) You have a "the DM is strict about races" problem. That's not the setting, that's the DM. The Realms is full of all sorts of non-Tolkien options, and if you're not allowed to play them, it's not Faerun's fault there.
2) You probably need to get off the Sword Coast. 5e is not your friend here, unfortunately, but there's a ton of Realms to play in, and depending on where you go, it can feel pretty drastically different. (3rd Edition material is probably the best for getting good info about more eastern locales; stuff like the 3e Campaign Setting, Lost Empires of Faerun, Mysteries of the Moonsea, Serpent Kingdoms, Shining South, Unapproachable East, Underdark, etc.)

[Khrysaes]

I literally went and dug up every worldbuilding supplement for that setting because I thought it was cool as hell. Good call!

You may enjoy wilderlands of high fantasy, another points of light setting. Here is the wiki for the first book. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/City...cible_Overlord
Other than it being bastions of civilization in a world of untamed wilds i am not overly familiar with it.

[thorr-kan]

I literally went and dug up every worldbuilding supplement for that setting because I thought it was cool as hell. Good call!

Re: Nentir Vale

A lot of work has been done over at The Piazza forums tracking down lore.

https://www.thepiazza.org.uk/

[Sparky McDibben]

Re: Nentir Vale

A lot of work has been done over at The Piazza forums tracking down lore.

https://www.thepiazza.org.uk/

Yep! I went there during my travels. I just really like how adventuresome that whole place felt.

[Pex]

Why use Eberron over a setting with existing but distant god's. A couple of your ideas are also already explored in Eberron, such as the fact that Eberron's afterlife isn't exactly great and how religions deal with that. Including two major religions that give two different views on the 'undeath as immortality' idea.

That's not getting into the fact that with ambiguous god's religion in Eberron becomes a matter of faith, rather than just a way to avoid the bloody Wall of the Faithless. That's interesting and opens up storytelling possibilities that don't exist in most published D&D settings, I don't see the benefit to it.

Use Eberron for the same reason to climb a mountain, because it's there.

[Jervis]

Use Eberron for the same reason to climb a mountain, because it's there.

But there’s no reason to climb a mountain in Eberron, they have airships

[kingcheesepants]

For a more traditional campaign that's different from Forgotten Realms but not too different you can try Theros. It's a world with a mythological ancient Greece theme. It has its own mythology and gods, but it has a recognizable feel.

Yeah, Theros has a good balance of familiarity and distinctness that lets it be a breath of fresh air without being so different like an Ebberon or Spelljammer game might be. Also because it has that classical mythology vibe races like Centaur and Minotaur and Satyr really fit in well. Which is again something a little different but still not so different as to be weird.

Of course a DM can allow or disallow any races for any reason they feel like (I had a DM once who disallowed humans because he felt that people only picked them in order to min max). But if your DM actually wanted to stick to FR lore he should realize that while Tieflings, Dragonborn, Gith, Genasi, etc might be rare they aren't so rare as to be totally unknown. Look in any official adventure set in the Forgotten Realms or read some of the books or play one of the official games like Baldur's gate or Neverwinter. You'll see lots of elf/dwarf/human adventurers but also a fair number that aren't one of those. Both the FR setting book (SCAG) and any of the core book (PHB, Xanathar's, Tasha's, MPMM, Volo's, FTD) races are assumed to exist in the Forgotten Realms. Your DM can do what he wants and don't be a jerk by pressuring him overly much but I find a lot of those more unusual races to be fun and they're all around in the official setting materials.

[Psyren]

I was not expecting this much love for Nentir Vale. It was painfully threadbare in my own books, with the only real standout from it imo being the Raven Queen who has since been ported over.

[Anonymouswizard]

I was not expecting this much love for Nentir Vale. It was painfully threadbare in my own books, with the only real standout from it imo being the Raven Queen who has since been ported over.

There's a lot to like, from the streamlining of the planes and deities to the adventure friendliness to the empty space to just plonk stuff in. It's not perfect or anywhere near being the deepest setting, but it's just generally solid and relatively simple.

[Sparky McDibben]

I was not expecting this much love for Nentir Vale. It was painfully threadbare in my own books, with the only real standout from it imo being the Raven Queen who has since been ported over.

It's not painfully threadbare, it's got space for me to do my own thing! :) It just looks threadbare next to the Forgotten Realms.

[PhoenixPhyre]

The World Axis Cosmology is superior imo to the Great Wheel. .

100% this. Great Wheel is a box-checking exercise and so heavily driven by alignment as to be painful.

[KorvinStarmast]

A lot of my homebrew worlds don't have deities, but when I do use them I like small pantheons that can cover most things and the deities themselves are pretty aloof.

This. + many. One thing GRR Martin got right was his "The Seven" pantheon in Westeros. Not too many, but a rich enough pantheon to have something for almost everyone. I'd say seven is a perfect number for deities, but then, that's how many my first homebrew world, that I built from the bottom up, had back in (wait, they had electricity back then?)

[Anonymouswizard]

This. + many. One thing GRR Martin got right was his "The Seven" pantheon in Westeros. Not too many, but a rich enough pantheon to have something for almost everyone. I'd say seven is a perfect number for deities, but then, that's how many my first homebrew world, that I built from the bottom up, had back in (wait, they had electricity back then?)

My first attempt had nine, my current has 1-3 per country (which works out as 5-15 with a lot of overlap). I'm also considering having a lot of minor gods with very small cults as a space for player-designed faiths.

A lot of it depends on what you need from deities. For me them being contradictory and causing culture clash is a good thing. You can only have orcs invading so many times until it gets old, it's useful to have long lasting tensions between kingdoms to fall back on.

[Khrysaes]

My first attempt had nine, my current has 1-3 per country (which works out as 5-15 with a lot of overlap). I'm also considering having a lot of minor gods with very small cults as a space for player-designed faiths.

A lot of it depends on what you need from deities. For me them being contradictory and causing culture clash is a good thing. You can only have orcs invading so many times until it gets old, it's useful to have long lasting tensions between kingdoms to fall back on.

Both this and the seven deity comment above make me think of Elder Scroll’s “By the Nine Divines”

[JackPhoenix]

This. + many. One thing GRR Martin got right was his "The Seven" pantheon in Westeros. Not too many, but a rich enough pantheon to have something for almost everyone. I'd say seven is a perfect number for deities, but then, that's how many my first homebrew world, that I built from the bottom up, had back in (wait, they had electricity back then?)

I usually go with five "real" gods, though they are often worshipped under different names and in different aspects. Same with playable races... I feel 5 is about all you need, everything else is pointless.

[Anonymouswizard]

Same with playable races... I feel 5 is about all you need, everything else is pointless.

I tend to find that one is enough, although considering the next game I hope to run is Deadlands: Hell on Earth: Reloaded I guess I can say that one and a half is acceptable.

I just find that race tends to be the least interesting choice made. An elven Junker would be vastly more similar to a human Junker than to an elven Templar. I'd honestly just have the space most games spend on races spent on giving us another class/power source. Harrowed (and Cyborgs) are interesting because they also serve as your power source.